The Darkest Path
by MizDirected
Summary: In the Aokigahara, death stalked everyone, but noone so much as Captain Jane Shepard. By its hot breath on the back of her neck, a twisting shadow in the corner of her vision, a subtle vine of decay slipping through the scents of life, the forest let her know Cerberus had reached beyond their grasp.


**Famactylus** \- A mythical creature of shadow that preys on the innocent souls of children.

 **Verro** \- Turian for husband

In the _Aokigahara_ , death stalked everyone, but none so much as Captain Jane Shepard. By its hot breath on the back of her neck, a twisting shadow in the corner of her vision, a subtle vine of decay slipping through the scents of life, it let her know Cerberus had reached beyond their grasp. Icy hands trailed over her body, following her wound tracks. A vicious mockery of the way her _verros_ touched her, its caress begged her to return to its arms.

'It's come,' the voices whispered from the leaves above. 'No one escapes death here, 'haven't you seen the tape? Follow the tape, Shepard.'

Speaking of …. The tape spooling off Shepard's hand snagged, and she spun, stumbling over a gnarled root. The moss-covered forest floor sped toward her face, less than a hand's width of fall remaining when hands grabbed her, yanking her back to her feet. The medigel'd wounds along her left side wailed like the lost souls crying on the endless wind. Endless fucking wailing on an endless fucking wind. Had it always been there, appearing the moment Miranda dragged her back to life?

Maybe. She unwound another metre or so of tape. Plastic tape fluttered from the trees, placed there by people trying to avoid becoming lost in the forest. Well, people who thought they might want to come back out, if they changed their minds. The fact it still wound through the trees told the saddest of tales.

Would the tape end in the same scene for her that it did for the sad wanderers who'd come before? Whether she sought death or not, it followed, closer than her skin. Maybe the _jukai_ would end the chase.

Thane stepped up beside her, a strong arm around her waist steadying her. Her ribs and tortured muscles wailed again, but she allowed him to assist. The drell looked up at the sky. Shepard followed his gaze to see the blue sky peeking through the canopy growing dark.

"We're three hours out from the crash site," Nihlus said. He appeared on Shepard's other side, his omnitool a sporadic flicker above his forearm. "Nothing's getting through the magnetic field. Comms and scanners are still dead." He turned toward the only sure route through that part of the forest, the one that led further up the volcano. Mt. Fuji. How innocent it sounded. How beautiful it looked from the air.

Impossible to believe she'd been so innocent and stupid so few hours before death's hand wrapped around her throat, its smoke-like breath creeping down into her lungs. From the ground, the reapers choosing to burrow into that ground made perfect sense. Death saturated every cell of the forest as black as the reapers' soulless nature.

"We're still being followed," Thane said, glancing around them. The assassin's veneer remained impeccable, but Shepard could feel the energy coming off of him. She'd never felt him so far off kilter … so nervous. Clearing his throat, Thane continued, "They're ahead, then above, and behind." He shuddered, and the air in Shepard's lungs froze. Thane shuddered. "I hear whispers."

"Circling like vultures, but ones not willing to wait for bodies to drop on their own." Shepard's shudder joined the assassin's, her broken ribs and insides moaning to match the song of the trees.

The canopy pressed close, reaching down to meet the huge mounds of roots and black, volcanic soil erupting from the moss: Dark leviathans sounding silent roars. Skeletal fingers clawed at them from every direction, scraping flesh and snatching at their armour. Breathing faster, Shepard keened softly with each inhale, the darkening tangle of trees lapsing into a close, treacherous silence.

"It's husks in the trees," Nihlus said, his words a gleam of polished bronze cutting through the gloom. The set of his jaw announced his refusal to partake in any sort of superstitious shenanigans as he marched ahead, taking the lead. "We all know how fast those spirit-cursed things run and climb." He focused on his omnitool, stabbing talons unleashing his ire on the malfunctioning equipment.

Shepard envied him that stolid denial. Husks didn't emanate the sort of energy that flitted around them in the forest. She couldn't even call it black, instead it howled with absence, black holes torn through the fabric of the universe.

"Husks didn't bring down the shuttle," Thane argued before she managed to organize her words through the pain.

"No, but an EMP from the reaper base could have." He turned off his omnitool.

"There are legends from the histories of all our people," Shepard said, speeding up a little to walk at Nihlus's side. She unravelled more tape as they pushed on. "Legends about spirits of complete darkness that consume the souls of the living. The _famactylus_ for turians, the _yurei_ for this particular forest. They're supposed to scream in the night."

Nihlus wrapped an arm around her. "We're not going to be here at night."

Even once her side pressed against her _verro's_ she worked herself in closer, the chill of the forest climbing deep inside her armour. The fetid air clung to her nostrils, wet cotton batting suffocating her. "I can feel them." Ice trickled down her spine, dragging that terrible void in their wake. "Blessed Enkindlers, I can feel them."

"It's this place," Nihlus assured her. "We just need to keep moving and get clear.

She didn't reply, her entire body trembling, the alarm at the back of her skull screaming at her to leave. "They're right, Nihlus, the dead live here." Her whisper drifted into the fog. She stepped away from Nihlus's side, gripping the tape in both hands. Something moved in the trees … a sound too low to hear … the susurrus of a feather. It brushed through her guts, tangling, tugging free, leaving fern-like barbs sticking to everything.

"The dead have fingers," she whispered. "Ones you can't see made from fog and sadness and hate. Those fingers reach right inside your skull and pull all the hope out. They catch you when you die, and if you come back, they come back with you." She turned to face him, feeling invisible feet creeping up behind her. She stifled a shudder when clammy hands stroked her neck. "They want me back. They brought me here."

"Shepard, stop." Nihlus grabbed her, startling her. "You're letting this perfectly beautiful forest freak you out! Stop. You're alive, and there are no ghosts." He pulled her into a hug, one she tolerated for a moment before withdrawing. "I know you're in pain and tired, so just stay focused on walking. We just need to get out far enough for comms."

Shepard nodded. The moss-covered trees called to her, the whisper finding a direction. "So many have died here," she said, feeling the truth rather than hearing or seeing it. She stepped over a root, gasping as the movement rattled all her broken pieces. "It's called the Aokigahara, the 'sea of trees', but that's wrong, it's a sea of death." Stopping next to a wide trunk, she pressed her hand to the silver bark. Blood flowed beneath the bark, warm and inviting, pulsing under her palm.

That pulsed strengthened as hers weakened. Lifting the hand pressed against her ribs, she stared at the thickening blood on her skin. It darkened to black. No fresh, bright red to taint it.

"Ready to speed up?" Thane asked, snaking his arm around her again.

She looked up and nodded. She needed to get them out.

The voices closed in, a miasma thickening with each step that carried them closer to the edge of the forest. It swirled, escalating from a whisper through speaking volume to wailing. Sweet baby Jesus, the wailing. Deafening, they grabbed hold of the black tar hiding between the folds of her brain—the manifestation of indoctrination—and pulled. "This way," she said, leading Nihlus and Thane further left.

She looked at them, trying to focus, but the two males blurred, constantly moving like branches flailing in the wind. They seemed so distant. They felt so distant, speeding away from her, the gulf of her broken pieces and the voices vast between them.

No, not yet. Not yet! She pushed one step at a time, and sure enough, a path appeared ahead of them. Clear and light, it pointed the right way: back to civilization.

Shepard walked without speaking, each footstep heavier, the whispers more alluring: the fog closing in. Almost time. Almost there.

"Come," the whispers called, their voices warm and welcoming. "Return to us." Scraping nails became open arms. Sirens lounged on the rocks, coaxing her on. "They had no right to steal you. What dies stays dead."

"Normandy to Shepard," Tali's voice called out, echoing through the twilight. "Shepard, Nihlus ... are you there?"

Shepard looked down to unwind more tape. Nothing. She turned her head; where did she drop it? The tape … the tape led the lost back out of the trees.

"That's no longer for you." Loving hands eased the pain, their pulse so strong, so warm.

Packed soil and fir needles cushioned her knees. For a moment, she lingered before folding, a graceful collapse onto the earth. Before them stood one of the large signs begging suicides to hold onto hope and seek help. Shepard reached toward it, fingertips scraping the loamy soil.


End file.
